


Gravity Can't Forget

by anr



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-26
Updated: 2010-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 11:25:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrenaline and exhaustion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity Can't Forget

Adrenaline and exhaustion, he thinks. Too many cups of coffee, an energy drink or two. They've been awake for close to thirty-five hours, bouncing from one lead to another, and while the impromptu stakeout had probably sounded like a great idea initially -- park half a dozen car lengths down from Lieutenant Harris' house and wait for him to leave and make contact with his supplier -- now it's seeming less and less like brilliance and more like torture.

Ziva yawns, her hand fluttering half way to her face and then drifting away before she can even cover her chin, let alone her mouth. "What time is it?"

He looks at the dash automatically before remembering that -- with the engine off -- the digital clock readout is blank. With what feels like the last of his energy reserves, he glances at his watch. "Half past."

She sighs, soft and tired, shoulders slumping. "If he doesn't," she starts, and he tells himself to listen, to pay attention, but the rest of her sentence is a mumbled blur that he's pretty sure wouldn't qualify for English even if they hadn't already been two heartbeats from unconsciousness.

"Hmm," he agrees anyway.

  


* * *

  


Silence settles, thick and heavy. Outside the car a light fog drifts through the street, turning the streetlights into glowing pools of sodium. He glances up from his phone -- Tetris, level eighteen -- checking for Harris or his contact every twenty seconds or so. Beside him, Ziva stares blankly out the windscreen, eyes open but features slack. He's pretty sure she's asleep -- dozing at the very least -- and the whole eyes-open-brain-shut look is maybe one of the creepiest things he's ever seen.

His phone vibrates, reminding him that he's about to die, and he turns back.

  


* * *

  


Movement down the street, from the house next to Harris'. They both tense in their seats, carefully not sitting up straight. Slowly, he moves his hand towards the key in the ignition.

A man in a dressing gown stumbles down the driveway, lugging a trashcan and dumping it unceremoniously on the kerb. Ziva snaps off a quick series of photos out of habit before he can turn and stumble back up towards the house, weaving sleepily.

Somewhere, a dog barks. Then, silence.

They watch closely for another minute anyway.

  


* * *

  


Ziva hums quietly, a melancholy little tune that reminds him of playgrounds and swing-sets and, strangely, of guns. M1 Garand .30-06 rifles, in fact.

"You're humming," he says.

She stops. "I was not," she lies. Then, "you were sleeping."

He doesn't open his eyes. "Am not."

  


* * *

  


Three of the houses in the street have _For Sale_ signs on their lawns, including the houses either side of Harris'. "Can't blame 'em," he says under his breath. He wouldn't want to live next door to a drug smuggler either.

"What?" asks Ziva, looking over and blinking.

He sighs. "Nothing. Thinking." He rolls back his shoulders and feels his neck crack. "Sorry."

She turns away again.

  


* * *

  


They take turns slipping out of the car and going for a walk. He pees behind a sycamore tree about a block away, trying not to wonder about where Ziva will go -- will she knock on some strangers door and ask if she can use their bathroom, the early hour notwithstanding? will she just hold it? -- and thanking God for the handful of brain-cells he still has left that will stop him from asking her directly when he gets back to the car. He's tired, punch-drunk exhausted maybe, but not stupid. (He hopes.)

  


* * *

  


It's not a dream, not really. He's not asleep enough for that. But it is Ziva, warm and tense above him, lower lip caught between her teeth and her hair floating off her shoulders, curtaining them. Her skin is slick under his fingers, sweat trickling down the arch of her spine. He licks his lips and tastes an echo of coffee and the convenience store burrito she ate on their way here. He can't remember the last time he felt this hard.

"Tony," Ziva says, and he grits his teeth against a groan.

Opening his eyes, he stares out his window, moving his hands to the steering wheel and gripping tightly. "Anything?" he asks.

Her cell phone is out, one hand cupped over the screen, hiding the glare. "McGee says no," she says.

He keeps his hands on the wheel.

  


* * *

  


Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Thirty-five. One hour. The night slips further.

Watching the second hand on his watch tick over, he thinks about football, about the last game he saw, the players he didn't like, the cheerleaders he did.

He doesn't think about Ziva, sitting beside him in the dark with his jacket spread across her thighs like a blanket, her arm pressing against his and her head resting on his shoulder.

  


* * *

  


The suburb stays asleep.

  


* * *

  


He takes a power-nap when Ziva wakes, reclining his seat just enough so he can slump semi-comfortably. His mind goes refreshingly blank.

  


* * *

  


When he opens his eyes again, Ziva's leaning over him, one hand on his thigh for balance and her cheek close enough to kiss.

"Ziva?" he whispers, tensing.

She turns her head, nose almost bumping against his. "I thought I heard something." Her breath washes over his chin, still too close. "It is gone now."

He nods minutely, unable to see past her face, the fall of her hair. His dick twitches in response to the warm weight of her hand on his leg, and a dozen or so possibilities flash quickly through his mind, reminding him of his earlier not-dream. _If only..._

He clears his throat. "I could check it out anyway," he offers. "Make sure." A breath of cold, fresh air probably wouldn't hurt right now. In fact, it'd probably be the best idea he's had all night.

Her gaze snaps back to his and he realises, a little slowly, that she was staring at his mouth. "I think it was a cat," she says. "I saw a shadow."

"Small shadow?" he asks, this time paying attention as her gaze drops again.

She shrugs, her weight shifting briefly. "Yes."

He lets out a breath that's a lot steadier than how he feels. "Probably not our guy, then."

Her nod shifts her hair, the strands almost forming a curtain around their faces. "Probably not."

_Kiss her_ , that punch-drunk part of his brain says, _damnit, for once just --_

Ignoring it, he stretches out his legs a little more, thinking that'll be enough, that'll remind her she's too close, get her moving back to her side of the car, back to their safe zones and the status quo...

Her hand slides up a little higher as his leg moves down, her palm settling just below the curve where his thigh becomes his hip, the tips of her fingers brushing his dick. He twitches again, and she feels it. They freeze.

"Ziva," he says again, tone more than a little strangled, "please," and God knows what he's actually asking her. Move away? Move closer? Just _move_?

Slowly, she raises her eyes to meet his, holding them. He doesn't dare take a breath.

Then she cups him, spreading her hand out over his dick, fingers finding the length of him through his pants and squeezing gently, her touch simultaneously cautious and sure, and his left hand is pushing back her hair and finding the curve of her neck and pulling her mouth to his before his brain can even register that he's moving.

Oh, _damn_.

Steady pressure from her hand, fingers curving over his dick, massaging him from semi-hard to ready-to-go. His right arm is between them, resting alongside the console between their seats, and he wants to reach for her, touch her, but there's not enough room to do so without pushing her away and _hell_ if he's going to do that. Twisting, she presses the heel of her hand against the base of his dick, fingernails lightly scratching, and his fingers tighten reflexively in her hair, his mouth opening against hers.

(Gotta stop, gotta stop, gotta stop. It's the last thing he wants to do -- hell, he's suddenly pretty damn sure that stopping is something he would _never_ want to do -- but they're tired, they're on the job, they're maybe not thinking very clearly about this. God, he doesn't even know _what_ he's thinking right now.)

He doesn't realise she's lowered his zipper until he feels the warmth of her skin on his, her fingers freeing him from his boxers and wrapping around his shaft, starting a stroking and tugging rhythm that has his eyes closing and his head tipping back, breaking their kiss. "Fuck," he manages, "Zi," and then there's just pressure and the firm grip of her hand, pulling him faster and harder towards a release he never in a million years thought he'd be getting from her, like this, right here --

She pulls back then, letting him go, and -- god, can't breathe, can't think, can't _even_ , fuck -- then she's twisting in her seat and sweeping her hair back over her shoulder, leaning down and taking him into her mouth, all slick, wet heat, sucking hard around his head, the flat of her tongue rubbing him just right, just ohfuckgod _there_ \--

  


* * *

  


She licks him clean before tucking him back into his boxers and pants, his breathing and heart-rate gradually slowing to something vaguely resembling normal. The sound of his zipper going back up sounds almost obscene in the quiet.

Settling back into her seat, Ziva runs her thumb across her bottom lip and he knows she doesn't mean anything by it, that it's an unconscious action, but that doesn't stop from leaning over and kissing her again, hard and fast.

She kisses him back, but when he starts to shift, to turn towards her as best as his seat can allow, his hand finding her knee, she shakes her head, pulling away. "No," she says softly, a small smile curving her lips, "later."

"Late--" he starts to repeat, only to turn and stare blindly at the now-fogged windscreen, his brain doing one of those weird little make-all-the-pieces-fit jumps it does when he's been really good and on the game. He lets go of her and returns to his side of the car, rolling down his window and staring up the street. "Where are the other trashcans?"

  


* * *

  


With both their windows down, and the crisp night air stealing inside, Ziva twists in her seat, shrugging into his jacket properly. He rescues the camera from her lap before it can fall, snapping off another couple of snaps of the trashcan for good measure.

"So, uh, do I want to know why you... why _we_ just..."

Taking back the camera, she smirks at him. "Probably."

Right. "And are you going to _tell_ me?"

She just smiles again.

  


* * *

  


He's not sure if the waiting's worse now because they know exactly what they're looking for, or because he has something infinitely more pleasurable waiting for when they're done.

"I spy with my little eye," he says, "something beginning with T."

"I will shoot you," she says calmly, "if the answer is 'Tony'."

He was actually thinking 'trees', but -- "There," he says instead. "Dog walker."

They watch as the man walks his dog down the still-dark street, the man, oh-so-casually, dropping a poop bag into the trashcan as he passes it. The shutter on Ziva's camera clicks rapidly.

"Tell me you got it," he says quietly, still watching the man and dog in the rearview mirror.

She's already pulling out her phone. "I got it."

  


* * *

  


Two minutes later, McGee and Gibbs confirm they've picked up the dog walker (and his dog) on the next block.

Five minutes after that, Ziva exchanges the coordinates hidden in the (thankfully poop-free) bag to a location of the NCIS' own choosing.

Another three hours and they're done.

  


* * *

  


"So you realised the neighbour you saw was actually Harris --" summarises McGee.

"Right," says Tony, packing up his gear.

"-- because the houses on either side of his place were for sale."

Ziva adds, "it was not a garbage collection night. There were no other trashcans on the street."

McGee frowns. "So the time between Harris putting out the trashcan, and you guys sharing this information with us..."

Tony smiles brightly, clapping him on the shoulder as he heads towards the elevator. "Patience, young Jedi. Patience."

  


* * *

  


In the parking lot, he leans against the side of his car, stifling a yawn. Thankfully, he doesn't have to wait long.

"If you quote a movie at me," she starts warningly, halting in front of her own car, two spaces down, and staring at him over the roof.

He wouldn't dare. Shaking his head, he flicks his keys around his index finger, smiling, and maybe it's his imagination, maybe it's sleep deprivation, but he's pretty sure he can already taste her on his tongue, slick and musky. "My place or yours?"

  


* * *

  


Hers.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/406627.html>


End file.
